Speaker's corner: Our roads cannot cope with 8,000 new homes

THERE is an environmental man-made timebomb that's ticking on the borders of North Bristol. The reason is the plan to build 8,000 new homes.

They will inevitably put pressure on our roads.

As for Bristol as a European Green Capital. It will more likely be known as smog city.

The extra homes will affect a wide area including Westbury-on-Trym, Henleaze, Horfield and Lockleaze.

Yet South Gloucestershire Council say the only pinch point will be Crow Lane roundabout!

Where will the traffic go from there? Will it evaporate?

With the best will in the world buses will not solve the problem.

In fact they too will be caught up in the traffic chaos.

People will not want to get on their bikes or walk in the pollution of any rush hour.

People will simply look to commute to other cities and that in turn will drive business away.

South Gloucestershire Council say more people to walk to work.

But this will not happen.

Many who work at Airbus live outside the area. They do not want to live close to industry.

South Gloucestershire Council seem to think they will attract these workers back.

But the members of our BS10 group have spoken with many workers and this is simply not the case.

Experts say if improvements to the M5 junctions are made together with improvements to Crow Lane roundabout and the roundabout on Southmead Road the effects of traffic will be no worse.

Do they live on another planet? We know this is not the case by just looking at streets around our city. Bristol will have to bear the brunt of increased traffic and air pollution caused by more people.

The Atkins transport assessment which was carried out sometime ago.

Did it take into consideration extra traffic from new zoo at Cribbs or the New Southmead Hospital. No.

South Gloucestershire experts use a system called "TRICS" which estimates there will be only 500 vehicle movements per 1,000 homes at peak times.

What a load of rubbish.

When plans were put in for a Bristol Free School in Southmead, residents were assured by developers and the headteacher that parents would not use cars to take children to school.

They said youngsters would walk, cycle or use the bus.

But has this happened? No.

What is ironic is that South Gloucestershire Council have rejected a housing application by David Wilson to build 380 homes in Winterbourne and Frampton Cotterell.

Dave Hockey, chairman of the council's planning committee, said it was important to "protect our rural setting and the environment and build the homes next to North Bristol".

Will 8,000 new homes not affect greater Bristol's environment?

South Gloucestershire Council have protected Green Belt in affluent rural areas, yet they have released green belt on our North Border.

This colossal development is a recipe for disaster if not managed correctly.

North Bristol already suffers from traffic choked roads.

Have you, for example, ever tried getting to and from The Mall or the motorway junctions at peak times?

South Gloucestershire Council say bus stops close to developments will encourage people to use public transport.

Will people go by bus to do their weekly shop?

Or will they take children to school then travel onto work by bus?

No.

There is also the issue of flooding.

The thousands of new homes will create water run-off on the lower lying levels.

This will cause more flooding on the already bursting River Trym as well as flooding in Henbury and Lower Brentry with a knock on effect downstream.

Fields which soak up water from roads will be replaced by concrete.

I believe Bristol's mayor should get involved.

He was elected to represent the people of Bristol and protect their welfare.

He needs to become proactive and deal with what I regard as a pending environmental catastrophe on our doorstep.

Our group BS10 is not against house building; we need new homes.

However, the scale of developments needs to be managed differently.

It's extremely sad that the city has lost Filton Airfield. It was a real asset.

But now it has closed BS10 believe new homes should be built on it first, rather than on agricultural land.

Land for businesses should be restricted to the Rolls-Royce site in Filton that has stood empty for years.

We would like to see Bristol's mayor George Ferguson organise the city's own traffic assessments.

Buses are not the answer as the city does not have enough bus only lanes.

And the lanes that exist run into other traffic and the chaos continues.

However the railways do provide a key to easing the problems.

We would like to see the Henbury loop opened to passenger trains.

Trains do not compete with road users and there has to be a good case for applying to the government for money to improve our local railways.

11 comments

To all those commenting on this issue, i think its time the Boundaries where changed, my ideal would be that any land on the Bristol side of the M4 would come under Bristol or say Bath, north of the M4 would come under South Gloucestershire, why are they encroaching this side of the M4.

Agree with CM_Punk. Those are the two stark choices. Build homes or put up the No Vacancies sign. As the third consideration of doing nothing, isn't an option. Hell, I'd go for a few more high rise flats at this moment.

Blame those who approved Bradley Stoke and the Mall @ Cribbs Causeway to be built and those who moved in complaining about the noise from aircraft taking off and landing at an airport that had been there for over 90 years when they were newcomers! They are the cause of the airfield shutting down when it would have been perfect for an international airport. No sympathy!

I agree with ADisciple, when the Station Road was made one-way, the reason trotted out was to cut the volume of traffic around Henbury School. I wrote to BCC suggesting they make the road one-way at school start-stop times only by using rotating signs like that used near Southmead Road to control the Airbus traffic at start/finish times. I recieved no reply....

Well you either have new homes or you have controls on people. Stop people moving to the area from other parts of the UK, stop immigrants from the EU and outside the EU from moving, stop new business from opening in the area or stop existing businesses expanding. What we probably need to do is stop compressing everything in at such a high density. That means biting the bullet and expanding the urban area. Building more homes, business and roads but at a far lower density than we do at the moment. That means building over a lot of fields. So take your pick, either places those controls on people and businesses or plaster over the fields.

I strongly agree with this. I work in Wotton-under edge, but live in Lawrence Weston. Logically going via the crow lane roundabout and back through Blaise is the shortest route, but the congestion at crow lane makes it impossible, so it's quicker to keep going down the M5 to avonmouth and then come back. Part of the problem as I see it is that with station road through henbury being one way only there is no good direct route from cribbs causeway to lawrence weston/shirehampton. In my opinion, a decent road from the rugby clubs on cribbs causeway to long cross, or even to Avonmouth and the A4 via Hallen cutting out henbury entirely, could ease pressure on the crow lane roundabout.
The major problem with the roads in north bristol is the lack of a ring road to allow traffic flow around the city, rather than just in and out.